


Isle of Atlas

by TheFreakWithTheWings



Series: Randomized Reincarnation [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Fuuinjutsu, Gen, Lot's of Original Characters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Insert, Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, aka more like guidelines, treating canon like the pirate code
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25498672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFreakWithTheWings/pseuds/TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: Remembering a past life can be both a boon and a burden.
Series: Randomized Reincarnation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847188
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my newest story. Before you read further, a warning: I don't know if this is ever going to be finished. It's one of the six fanfic ideas that I'm slowly chipping away at when I'm not working on my original work. I currently have three chapters written and plan to post one a week. Being a college grad means I have more time to write, but being an essential employee means that it isn't very much more than it was. Also, constructive criticism will be allowed as long as it follows the form of 1) one thing you liked, 2) one thing you didn't like, and 3) any emotions that you felt while reading, with a limit to one criticism per chapter. Any criticism that doesn't follow these relatively simple guidelines will probably be deleted. With all that said, I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Yukiko had the unfortunate luck to be able to remember her past life in a great deal of detail. Most of it hadn't been bad, although remembering her death always left her feeling cold and afraid. No, the worst part was that she had the maturity of an adult with the body of a toddler. Included in that was the brain chemistry and emotional control of a toddler, which meant that she was very prone to bursting into tears and then being unable to stop crying because she was so frustrated with the fact that she was crying in the first place. Yukiko usually couldn't stop the tears until she was so tired that she fell asleep.

This time, the tears had started because her mother had announced that they were going to be moving. For the third time in as many months.

"Oh, hush, Yukiko," her mother chided, bouncing her up and down in her arms. "You'll love Uzushiogakure. You'll make plenty of new friends, and we probably won't have to move again."

"I don't see why we had to leave the Land of Fire in the first place," her father complained, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Kosuke, this could be the opportunity we've been looking for, the chance to really make a big break," her mother said. "We could finally have a stable place to raise Yukiko and any other children that might come along."

"And what was wrong with the Land of Fire?"

"You mean, besides the sudden political instability caused by two noble clans going from feuding to peace?"

"Yes, besides that. We're just cloth merchants; what sort of ninja would bother with that?"

It was an old argument that Yukiko had heard countless times since they had left the place she'd been born, so it was easy for her to tune them out and work on calming herself down instead. In with one hiccuping breath and then out. In and then out. In. Out. In. Out.

By the time her tears had dried up, her parents had come to the foregone conclusion of their argument: ignoring each other in favor of other things. This time, her father was checking the map while her mother went through their finances again. It was a tense sort of peace, apt to be broken at any moment should one of them get upset, but it wasn't outright fighting.

The peace barely lasted ten minutes before it was broken by a redheaded woman wearing armor and covered in swirling black tattoos popping up out of nowhere.

"Hello, hello, hello!" she chirped, a giant smile stretching across her face. "I'm Uzumaki Kotone, and I'm here to be your escort to Uzushiogakure, if you are the Bando family. If not, my bad."

"I am Bando Izumi, of the Bando family," mother hastened to assure the redhead. "And may I say it is an honor to have a member of the Uzumaki family personally escorting us."

Uzumaki flapped a hand in faux embarrassment. "Stop, stop, you're gonna make me blush."

"Is that a bad thing?" her mother asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking.

Her father cleared his throat, interrupting the flirting, and asked "How long will it take to get there?"

Uzumaki reluctantly stopped looking at Izumi long enough to answer Kosuke's question with a flippant "A few more hours, probably."

"Probably?" Kosuke was clearly just barely repressing his anger now.

Yukiko simultaneously wanted to laugh at him for getting so worked up by her mother's fake flirting and also hide because angry fathers weren't very fun. Her last father had been the type to yell a lot whenever he was angry, so much so that it had taken her fifteen years to realize that his anger was a cover for worry and then another fifteen years to stop flinching whenever a man raised his voice at her.

"Well, sealing is a delicate art, and while I could probably carry the lady and the baby, you've got a little bit too much weight for me to be carrying you all the way to Uzushio," the redhead explained.

"I'm two, not baby," Yukiko protested. She was still working on all of the grammar rules.

"Aw, of course you're not," the redhead said condescendingly. Yukiko pouted. "But yeah, since I plan on sealing up all of your stuff, the pace really depends on you."

Izumi and Kosuke took that statement as a cue to have a discussion on how they planned on traveling. Not wanting to listen to her parents, Yukiko instead watched their escort.

Her efforts were quickly rewarded, because the redhead somehow knew how to do fucking _magic_.

Uzumaki had pulled out a scroll from her sleeve, which had been too small to carry it in the first place, rolled it out to reveal that it was covered in the same swirly designs that were tattooed all over her body, and then made the cart and all of their goods disappear! Like magic!

Yukiko gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, green eyes wider than saucers as she stared at the magic redhead.

The redhead winked, clearly pleased with herself.

"How do?" Yukiko asked. Before this moment, she had thought that she'd simply been reincarnated into the past or maybe an alternate universe where time ran slower and it was still the feudal era of Japan, but since there was quite clearly actual magic in this world then she was going to have to throw all of her hypotheses out the window. How exciting! And what were the odds that she could learn some of this magic herself?

"Ah, fuinjutsu," the redhead said. "It's the lifeblood of Uzushio. Maybe if you're lucky you'll be able to learn it, but it's mostly a secret that we don't share with any other clans, so keep it secret, yeah?"

Yukiko nodded solemnly. There were few things she wouldn't do for a chance to learn how to do actual magic, so keeping a secret was literal child's play. Besides, no one was going to expect a two year old to spill secrets. Still it was nice to have a goal in life. Once their family got to Uzushio, she was going to do everything she could to learn about this 'fuinjutsu.'


	2. Chapter 2

Uzushiogakure was a shining jewel of a city, perched atop a large island, brimming with greenery, and cradled on all sides by the cerulean sea. Other islands could be glimpsed on the edges of the horizon, but much closer and far more threatening were the great white whirlpools which encircle the island like wolves circling a deer, or perhaps mother bison encircling their calves from a threat, or maybe both.

Yukiko stared at the whirlpools as Uzumaki Kotone tugged their little boat through the waves. They were the first thing that had been able to successfully draw her attention from the sight of the redhead _walking on water_. Her parents barely seemed fazed by the stunning display of magic, so Yukiko could only conclude that it was something they had seen before. She felt a little betrayed that her own family hadn't even bothered to tell her this was a magic world. Her parents seemed to find her sulking to be amusing, so Yukiko wasn't speaking to them.

Yes, it was childish, but she was a literal child, so no one could make her feel ashamed about that.

"Why so big?" she asked the redhead, pointing at the whirlpools. She remembered from her last life that giant whirlpools were supposed to be fictional, so was the magic of this world at fault?

Uzumaki winked. "Fuinjutsu is capable of a lot more than just storage, kid."

Yukiko's mind raced, full of possibility and potential as she tried to figure out how storing things related even slightly to creating giant whirlpools. Maybe something about the vacuums created by the emptying the storage did something to the water that when arranged in a circular fashion created a whirlpool? She really did not know enough about fuinjutsu, fluid dynamics, or how the magic and science of this world intersected. Figuring it out was going to be so exciting!

Small bodies were not very good at handling lots of emotions, so as soon as they docked, Yukiko was racing down the dock and back to her parents repeatedly, shrieking. She was just too excited to stay still or quiet.

"She gets this from your side of the family," Izumi said, dragging a tired hand down her face.

Her father rolled his eyes and deliberately turned to Uzumaki. "Could you show us where to go? And maybe somewhere Yukiko can play?"

The redhead's smile was blinding. "Sure, all the little cousins are probably at the beach right now; the little lady will fit right in. Well, except for the hair. Lots of redheads on Uzushio, not a lot of people with white hair unless they're pushing ninety."

Yukiko was dropped off at a nearby beach practically swarming with tiny redheads while her parents followed Uzumaki Kotone to sort out their housing and business situations. The glare of the sun off the sea was bright, and the sand under her tiny feet was burning. The salty smell of the sea was ever present, with an undertone of rotting plants that wafted off the piles of kelp fronds had been left behind by the tides.

Rather than try and socialize, Yukiko marched straight down to the shore, splashing around a bit in the shallows before she picked a perfect spot. It wasn't too high above the waterline, so any sand would get swept away by the sea, but it was still far enough away that it would occupy her for some time. Once she had her location, Yukiko began to dig.

She didn't know why she liked digging in beaches so much. She had done it in her past life too, on lake shores, sand bars peeking out of rivers, and hidden coves on the ocean. Something about scooping sand out and reaching down into the earth for another handful over and over again was just so satisfying. Before too long, water began to trickle into her hole, which made the digging more interesting. If she swirled the water around, it would erode at the walls of her hole and make it wide enough for her to sit in, but it made the actual act of digging much harder. The soupy wet sand just didn't clump as well as the hard-packed moist sand that rested on top of it.

Of the possible treasures Yukiko might have dug up - sand dollars or desicated starfish or pretty shells - she hadn't been expecting a half rotting fish, although maybe she should have. She screamed, running to the water to clean the dead fish gunk off of her hands. Of course, being just one small child in a whole crowd, her scream drew attention.

The first little redhead to reach the hole she'd dug in the sand gasped and jumped up and down a few times. This had the predictable effect of sending the little girl toppling into the hole, right onto the fish. "Dead fish," she squealed. "dead fish!"

"Gross!" another girl exclaimed, peering down from the side of the hole and looking delighted. "Poke it!"

Yukiko, not wanting to get caught up in a group of toddlers playing with a dead fish or even worse, older kids yelling at them for picking at a dead fish, snuck away to an empty stretch of beach and flopped down on the sand. It was pleasantly warm, even if she could feel the sand working its way into her hair and clothes. Almost nice enough for napping.

She must have started dozing, because when a voice yelled "Yukiko!" the sun was much further west than it had been when she'd lain down. Her pale, exposed skin was also a bright, lobster red from UV rays. Yukiko winced as she stood, hoping her DNA repair mechanisms would kick in before she got skin cancer, and hurried back to where her parents were waiting for her.


	3. Chapter 3

Healing from a sunburn felt like it took forever. Trying to learn fuinjutsu took even longer, though.

First, she had to learn how to read. Unfortunately, very few people were willing to even consider teaching a two year old how to read, and her parents were not among them. Trying to figure out what her parents were writing when they took down the orders was an exercise in futility. Even the neuroplasticity of a toddler couldn't help her learn to read with no context clues to puzzle things out. Simply put, reading was going to have to wait.

Not only did her parents not have the time to teach her to read, they barely had the time to spend with her at all. Setting up a new branch of their business was an expensive and time consuming process. Having a toddler underfoot was very unhelpful. Therefore, Yukiko was released into the streets everyday after breakfast with an admonishment to come back for lunch. The first few times she wandered towards the beach, although she never went in the water unless there was someone older watching her. The image of those furiously roaring whirlpools flashed before her eyes any time she contemplated swimming past the point where she would still be able to stand.

However, the novelty of being able to swim in the ocean everyday soon started to wear off, and so Yukiko began to wander through other parts of the city, looking for things to do. There had been a lot of young kids the first day she had been to the beach, even if most of them had seemed to be a little older than her, so there was probably a school in the area. And Yukiko was pretty big for a two year old, big enough that she could probably pass for a short four year old, especially if she leaned on her past life to seem more mature. Her white hair would mean that she would never blend in with the predominantly redheaded children who made up the majority of the population, so she would need so appear to be a legitimately new student.

And so Operation Back to School began.

It was kind of funny- in her last life she'd been so relieved to be done with school after her college graduation, and now here she was plotting how to get right back into it. Of course, maybe if her university had offered classes on actual magic then the past version of Yukiko would have opted to go for a full on PhD. However, with how things had been in her family, it was doubtful.

Yukiko cut that thought off before it could go any further. One of the downsides of the plan was that she was pulling more on her past maturity, which led to more dwelling about her past life than Yukiko was strictly comfortable with. She couldn't go back to the past, and thinking about the people she lost would only send her into a spiral of grief. Yukiko didn't have time for that if she was going to con her way into elementary school.

In the end, it turned out to be a simple matter of timing. She figured out when the kids were leaving and going to school, followed them back to the school. After that, all Yukiko had to do was show up, mention something about her mom being too busy, and act like she was supposed to be there with just a little uncertainty to fully sell the idea that she was a four year old on a mission from her mom. The teacher, who surprisingly wasn't a redhead, having a sheet of green hair hanging down to his hips, simply waved her into the classroom and began going over what she did know of the various subjects he taught.

Considering that Yukiko was still struggling with proper speaking, she didn't pass that test, and the reading and writing ones weren't even worth mentioning, but overall she thought she did pretty well. She already knew what sharing was even though she was an only child in this life and the concept of how to do basic math, if not what the numbers were called in this universe, so it wasn't like she was coming in to school completely unprepared. If anything, she was _highly_ over prepared.

The teacher even mentioned something about it, frowning down at his notes and muttering to himself about advanced classes. Yukiko was all for the advanced classes- the sooner she could breeze through the math curriculum the more time she would have for the magic!

"Are you going to teach us fuinjutsu?" Yukiko asked, blinking innocently at the teacher. "I saw someone use it when we moved here, and it was so cool!"

The teacher snorted. "Most kids your age would rather learn ninjutsu. After all, it's much easier to learn hand signs than the symbology and calligraphy needed for proper sealing."

Yukiko narrowed her eyes. There was more than just one type of magic? Shit, would she be able to learn both of them at the same time, or would she have to choose one? More information was needed before she could make a decision.

"Do I have to decide now?"

The teacher didn't say anything for a long moment, simply staring at her. Yukiko's heart was still beating just a little bit fast from so brazenly sneaking into school, and the staring was enough to make her wonder if her cover was blown. She fidgeted with the hem of her clothes, rubbing her fingers back and forth to feel how the texture changed depending on which way the fabric was stroked, and she tried not to break out into a nervous sweat.

"No. If you are lucky enough to get an apprenticeship after your basic schooling, then your master will decide for you," he finally answered.

Great, one more thing for her to worry about for the future. Yukiko worked very hard to suppress the tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes.


End file.
